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“I wouldn’t smoke here if I were you,” he said. “I know it is your custom, but it is offensive among the

men of the Domains.”

“What was he saying?”

Lerrys flushed. “He was asking, to put it in the simplest possible terms, if you were an—an effeminate. Itwas partly those damned sandals of yours, and partly—well, as I say, men do not smoke here. It isreserved for women.”

With an irritable gesture Barron ground out his cigarette. This was going to be worse than he thought.

“What’s that word you used—
 
chaireth
?”

“Stranger,” Lerrys said. Barron picked up a lump of meat again, and Lerrys said, almost apologizing, “I

should have provided you with a knife.”

“No matter,” Barron said, “I wouldn’t know how to use it anyway.”

“Nevertheless—” Lerrys began again, but Barron did not hear him. The fire before them slid away—or

rather, flared up, and in the midst of the flames, tall, bluish, and glowing, he saw—

A woman.

A woman again, standing in the midst of flames. He thought he cried out in the moment before the figurechanged, grew and was, again, the great chained Being, regal, burning, searing her beauty into his heartand brain.

Barron gripped his hands until the nails bit into the palms.

The apparition was gone.

Lerrys was staring at him, white and shaken.

“Sharra,” he breathed, “Sharra, the golden-chained—”

Barron reached out and grabbed him. He said, hoarsely, disregarding the men at the fire, which wasonce again the tiny, cooking fire, “You saw it?
 
You
 
saw it?”

Lerrys nodded without speaking. His face was so white that small freckles stood out. He said at last witha gasp, “Yes, I saw. What I can’t understand is—how
 
you
 
saw! What in the Devil’s name are you?”

Barron, almost too shaken to speak, said, “I don’t know. That keeps happening. I have no idea why.

I’d like to know why you can see it, too.”

Struggling for composure, Lerrys said, “What you saw—it is a Darkovan archetype, a Goddess form. Idon’t completely understand. I know that many Terrans have some telepathic power. Someone must be

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broadcasting these images and somehow you have the power to pick them up. I—” He hesitated. “I must

speak to my foster father before I tell you more.” He fell silent, then said with sudden resolution; “Tell

me, what would you rather be called?”

“Dan will do,” Barron said.

“Dan then. You are going to have trouble in the mountains; I thought you would be an ordinary Terran, and not aware—” He stopped, biting his lip. “I am under a pledge,” he said at last, “and I cannot break it even for this. But you are going to have trouble and you will need a friend. Do you know why no one would lend you a knife?”

Barron shook his head. “Never occurred to me to ask. Like I said, I can’t use one anyway.”

“You are a Terran,” Lerrys said. “By custom and law here—a knife or any other weapon must never be lent or given, except between sworn friends or kin-folk. To say ‘my knife is yours’ is a pledge. It means that you will defend the other—therefore, a knife or any weapon, must be bought, or captured in battle, or made for you. Yet,” he said, with a sudden laugh, “I will give you this—and I have my reasons.” He stooped down and drew a small sharp knife from the pocket in his boot. “It is yours,” he said, suddenly very serious. “I mean what I say, Barron. Take it from me, and say ‘yours and mine.’

Barron, feeling embarrassed and strange, fumbled at the hilt of the small blade. “Mine, then, and yours. Thank you, Lerrys.” The intensity of the moment caught him briefly up into it, and he found himself staringinto the younger man’s eyes almost as if words passed between them.

The other men around the fire were staring at them, Gwynn frowning in surprised disapproval, Colrynlooking puzzled, and vaguely—Barron wondered how he knew—jealous.

Barron fell to his food, both puzzled and relieved. It was easier to eat with the knife in his hand; later hefound it fitted easily into the little pocket at the top of his boot. Lerrys did not speak to him again, but hegrinned briefly at Barron now and then, and Barron knew that, for some reason, the young man hadadopted him as a friend. It was a strange feeling. He was not a man to make friends easily—he had noclose ones—and now a young man from a strange world, guessing at his confusion, had thrustunexpected friendship on him. He wondered why and what would happen next.

He shrugged, finished his meal, and followed Colryn’s gestured directions—to rinse his plate and bowland pack them with the others and to help with the spreading of blankets inside the shelter. It was verydark now; cold rain began to spray across the compound; and he was glad to be inside. There was, herealized, a subtle difference in the way they treated him now; he wondered why, and though he toldhimself it made no difference, he was glad of it.

Once in the night, wrapped in fur blankets, surrounded by sleeping men, he woke to stare at nothingnessand feel his body gripped with weightlessness and cold winds again. Lerrys, sleeping a few feet away,stirred and murmured, and the sound brought Barron back to the moment.

It was going to be one hell of a trip if this keeps on happening every few hours.

And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

IV

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«^»

A VOICE called in Melitta’s dreams.

“Melitta! Melitta, sister,
 
breda
 
, wake! Listen to me!”

She sat up in the dark, desperately grasping at the voice. “Storn,” she gasped, half aloud, “is it you?”

“I can speak to you only a little while like this,
 
breda
 
, so listen. You are the only one who can help me. Allira cannot hear, and in any case she is too frail and timid, she would die in the hills. Edric is wounded and prisoned. It must be you, little one. Dare you help me?”

“Anything,” she whispered, her heart pounding. Her eyes groped at the dark. “Are you here? Can we

escape? Shall I make a light?”

“Hush. I am not here; I speak to your mind only. I have tried to waken hearing in you for these last four days and at last you hear me. Listen, sister—you must go alone. You are only lightly guarded; you can shake them off. But you must go now, before snow closes the passes. I have found someone to help you. I will send him to you at Carthon.”

“Where…”

“At Carthon,” the fading voice whispered and was silent. Melitta whispered aloud, “Storn, Storn, don’t go,” but the voice had failed and faded into exhaustion. She was alone in the darkness, her brother’s voice still ringing like an echo in her ears.

Carthon—but where was Carthon? Melitta had never been more than a few miles from her home; shehad never been beyond the mountains and her ideas of geography were hazy. Carthon might be over thenext ridge, or it might be at the world’s end.

She flung agonized queries into the darkness.
 
How can I, where shall I go
 
? But there was no answer,only darkness and silence. Had it been a dream born of her frenzy to escape, or had her brother in hismagical trance, somehow managed to reach her mind in truth? If it were so, then she could do nothing butobey.

Melitta of Storn was a mountain girl with all that implied. The prime root of her being was the clan loyaltyto Storn, not only as her elder brother, but as the head of his house. That he was blind and incapacitated,that he could not have defended her and her sister and younger brother—not to mention their people—inthis crisis, made no difference. She did not censure him even in her thoughts and believed, when Allira didso, that the girl’s sufferings at Brynat’s hands had turned her brain. Now he had laid the task on her toescape and find help, and it never occurred to her not to obey.

She rose from her bed, pulled a fur robe around her shoulders—for the night was bitterly cold and thestone floors had never known fire—and thrust her feet into furry socks, then, moving surely in the dark,found flints and tinder and struck a small lamp—so small that the light was not much bigger than the headof a pin. She sat down before the light, cheered a little by the tiny flame, and began to plan what shecould do.

She knew already what she must do—escape from the castle before snow closed the passes, andsomehow make her way to Carthon, where her brother would send someone to help her. But how thiscould be accomplished, she found it hard to imagine.

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Guards still followed her at a respectful distance, everywhere she went through the halls. Dark and latethough it was, she was sure that even if she left her room they would rouse from where they slept andfollow. They feared Brynat more than they longed for sleep. Their fear of him was made clear to herwhen she realized that not one of them had ventured to lay a hand on her. She wondered if she should begrateful for this, and thrust the thought aside. That was to fall into his trap.

Like all mountain girls, Melitta was enough of a realist to think the next logical step: could she seduceone of the guards into letting her escape? She thought it unlikely. They feared Brynat, and he had orderedthem to let her alone. More likely the guard would accept her advances, take what she offered, then godirectly to Brynat with the story and win approval of his chief as well. After which, Bryant might wellpunish her by turning her over to the outlaws for a plaything. That was a blind alley—she could havemade herself do it, but it would probably be no use.

She went to the window, pulling her furs closer about her, and leaned out.
 
You must be gone beforethe snow closes the passes
 
. She was a mountain girl, with weather and storms in her blood. It seemedto Melitta that she could almost smell from afar, borne on the chill night wind, the smell of far-off cloudspregnant with snow.

The night was not far advanced. Idriel and Liriel swung in the sky; Mormalor, faint and pearly, hunghalf-shadowed on the shoulder of the mountain. If she could manage somehow to leave the castle beforedawn…

She could not go now. Brynat’s men were still at their nightly drinking party in the great hall; Allira mightsend for her still, and she dared not be found absent. But in the hours between deep night and dawn,when even the air was sluggish, she might devise a plan, and be far away before mid-morning discoveredthat she was not in her room. She closed the window, cuddling herself in the furs, and went back to makeplans.

Once out of the castle she wondered where she could go. It would be to Carthon, wherever that was,eventually. But she could not make Carthon in a single night; she would need shelter and food, for it mightbe a journey halfway to the world’s end. Once clear of Castle Storn, perhaps some of her brother’svassals would shelter her. Although they were without power to protect against Brynat’s attack, sheknew that they loved Storn and many of them knew and loved her. They would at least let her hideamong them for a day or two until the hue and cry died down; they might help provide her with food forthe journey, and it might be that one of them could set her on the road to Carthon.

The nearest of the great lords were the Aldarans, of Castle Aldaran near High Kimbi; they had, as far asshe knew, no blood feud with Storns and no commitment to Brynat, but it seemed unlikely that theywould, or could, come to the aid of Storn at this time. Her grandmother’s kinfolk had been Leyniers,related to the great Comyn Domain of Alton, but even the Comyn Council’s writ did not run here in themountains.

It did not occur to Melitta to censure her brother, but it did occur to her that, knowing himself weak, hemight well have attempted to place himself under the protection of one of the powerful mountain lords. But always before, the chasms and crags surrounding Storn had made them impregnable; and—a Stornswear fealty to another house? Never!

He could have married Allira
—
 
or me
—
 
to some son of a great house. Then we would haveblood kin to protect us
—
 
bare is the back with no brother to guard it
!

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Well, he had not, and the time for fretting was long past—
 
chickens can’t be put back into eggs
! Theevil bird that had hatched from this oversight was out and flying, and only Melitta had the freedom andthe strength to save something from the wreck.